Introduction
Capital markets and individual companies have changed the face of business through globalization. Firms have expanded their operations through new technologies that provide solutions at a low cost. Technological innovations have kept firms on their toe in the competitive world. Global markets are also putting firms at pressure to innovate and still reduce the costs of their products. This is not an easy task but it has led the companies to effectively manage the assets they have more specifically human assets and come up with more strategies other than innovation to maintain the profile in the market and cope with change.
CoInnovateCo Changes
Apart from creativity and innovation the organisation needed to make changes to the managements for it to attain its goal. Performance in an organisation is termed as efficiency, productivity, effectiveness, and competitiveness. Productivity in terms of labor is a major problem of management. Training is a tool of management used in developing knowledge and skills to increase the performance of individuals and organisations. This is one way that CoInnovateCo used in their change. Employee development is another tool in management that connects to objectives of the organisation and is efficient for future performances. Development and training of employees is important for an organisation that seeks to get competitive advantage through a flexible and high skilled workforce. A trained workforce cuts cost on supervision as they can inspect their work and minimize machinery down time by repairing them. A competent workforce gives the management confidence in new technology utilization. Since CoInnovateCo trained its workers to be responsible, they are able to maintain good relationships with suppliers, customers, organize a smooth flow of materials and keep records for product delivery and customer satisfaction.
If the management is committed to training the workers then they get to feel that they are valued. This raises the morale of the workers and encourages their commitment to the company. This training makes them do a better job more responsibly and creatively giving a better job satisfaction and long term enhancement of productivity. Companies are not prepared to get all the benefits together so they select and train recruits according to the policies they have and the traditions of the industry. CoInnovateCo must have done this since the organisation was still based on traditions methods of command and control. The structure is changed through re-organisation of responsibilities in the workplace. The company management did not assume that the workers had the skills required for the new technology rather they trained them accordingly.
In a world of rapid changes in technology and short product life it is difficult to invest in skilled training of workers. The company wants to save costs in short term and the method they can opt for is outsourcing. This makes the immediate labour cheap and production too. The firms turn to sources on the outside for skills, subcontracts, short term employment and freelance skilled personnel. These sources are already trained and may be disposed if not needed. The in house workforce is left to do the difficult, fragmented and awkward work which needs flexibility and specific knowledge of the firm. This could have been another change to the structure of CoInnovateCo that was used to attain their goal. This ensures that cost effectiveness as the priority of the management. This strategy could cause discontinuity or delays in workforce skills. It is however a necessity in fighting global competition in an imperfect free market system.
Culture in a business is the tools used to create alignment, shared direction and commitment in an organisation. Culture change aims at actively building capability for new methods of working. It allows new beliefs, processes, thinking, and tools that result in success of the organisation. Culture has to grow as the business grows. The first step the CoInnovateCo did was to eliminate the traditional culture and redesign the business. This forced the people to rethink their responsibilities and roles, and their relationships. The company also chose the right level of leadership culture for its organisations future success, from command and control to a more connected, versatile and responsive culture. This strategy engages and empowers all employees whose attitudes are still dependent and resistant to change. The best way the management could have changed the old culture is to use it against its employees and hiring new ones with the new culture in mind. For example, make them comply or leave.
Slowing down in order to power up is a principle of culture change. Giving time to beliefs on behavior and decisions the management is able to help the company be faster and flexible in the future. Challenges can be addresse4d at the root level if action is slowed down. Time lost at such slow moments is covered for during a speed up that comes along the process of change. In CoInnovativeCo for example, learning was identified as a crucial skill in culture development to adapt to change. The teams are allowed to stop a process for a learning period. This helps to gain an understanding of the process that would lead to permanent changes in the performance of the business. A dialogue can be adopted as a way of slowing down. This helps in dealing with potential and complex divisive issues through objectifying them. It is an ideal method of exploring ideas rather than avoiding them or debating which could cause conflicts.
Role of leadership in the change process
Change management is the most essential thing for success in managing strategy, culture and people. Organisations need to stay focused on change to remain in the competitive world of globalization and technological innovations. Change management is an ongoing and continuing combination of science and art that ensures the alignment of the structures, strategies, and processes in an organisation. Leaders in the organisation have the role to manage change without forgetting the principles of change management. Successful change in an organisation depends on leaders; bosses and managers.
All leaders despite their level in an organisation act as advocates for change. They have to keep change in front of their colleagues. They are sponsors and do not let change die because of lack of attention. In CoInnovate the leaders acted within their power to be the champions of change. They are the role models and always willing to do it first. They have to show the behavior and attitudes that they expect the juniors to carry around. This makes the employees believe in change because the words and actions they see make the intended change look like it is going to happen. Just like any other leaders those in CoInnovate were the decision makers. They control resources like budgets, equipment, and people to make the initiative effective. If these roles are left to everyone in the organisation the initiative is bound to fail. Leaders do not all the decision making but give the employees a chance to participate in the crucial exploration of ideas. Leaders are the face and voice of change in an organisation. They are required to communicate often because they have to share information, give encouragement and update the employees on every step. During change like that of CoInnovateCo employees are susceptible to hearing contradicting messages or multiple ones but they follow the instructions of the person they listen to most who is their boss. They are consistent and transparent. This means that the leaders make their reporting reliable and without hiding information to the employees. This makes them feel motivated and ready to implement the change. If the leaders show the employees the importance and urgency of the change, for instance to attain the goal of sustainable innovation by CoInnovateCo, needed the employees to show commitment and passion which they could not have attained if they were not motivated to through rewarding and recognition of achievements.
According to Prosci the roles of senior managers and that of supervisors may differ in that:
- Employees are concerned about the commitment of the executive because the authority they demonstrate carries change to other actors. Senior leaders are supposed to participate fully and actively the whole time of the change while building a coalition of managing resistance and sponsorship. They also communicate to the employees directly because it satisfies their eagerness to hear from someone at the top about the business
- Supervisors and middle managers are like grounds men, always close by. They support the employees through both macro and micro changes. The people take up the attitudes of the supervisor. Supervisors communicate to the employees about changes that affect them directly. They are also the advocates of the organisation. For example, if they oppose the employees follow behind. Supervisors are also the coaches for the employees throughout the transition period. They interact, take direction, and provide feed back to the project team. It has been established that supervisors are the best interventions in resistance mitigation. This is because they are close to the employee and they know and understand each one of them through socialization or because they report to them.
Role of human resource management and development
Human resource management is the management of a company’s asset and mostly the people. Its work is to manage activities that involve or impact on organisation and employee relationship or act as an operation functions system like selection, staffing, training, job design, performance appraisal, career development, and compensation. The human resource system is composed of practices that can influence the capacity of creativity and innovation directly. For example, exploitation and development of intellectual capital, creation of knowledge, development of products and organizational learning. In CoInnovateCo, human resource management practices provided the opportunities for creativeness and innovation to the employees through participation encouragement. The combination of appraisal and training influences organizational learning which includes sharing, creation, and knowledge implementation.
Human resource development and management played the role of staff training, payment on time, giving them extra services if required, choosing the staff and experts for the training and other guiding sessions, staff evaluation. This led to the improvement of knowledge in the staff, the transfer and use of that knowledge in the organisation.human resources covers activities from application to retirement of an employee. In CoInnovateCo, the department helped in keeping records of the employees and experts in their training, participation, development, skills and capability management. This helped to select the right person for the job in question.
The main task of human resource development is to ensure that needed skills are available in the required location and on time. This is why the department is systematically oriented. This is done through planning measures for human resource development and implementing them through career planning, personnel promotion, and qualification provision. An effective management of the people needs constant development and planning and that is what human resource did for the company. Human resource department has access to information that is used to devise strategies to oversee the betterment of CoInnovateCo for example, through decision making and action implementation. Human resource management and development concerns itself with attaining the goals and objectives of the organisation through and with the people. They do this by revising and developing sets of new skills as required by high performers. They know the key to high performance is to reflect, assess, discover, and act which is the process of CoInnovateCo in its creation and innovation process. They connect the hearts, heads and hands of its people in focusing on the change.
The human resource management team is charged with responsibilities of motivating its people and building an efficient tem through recognizing their hard work and achievements. If workers are rewarded they get the morale to work harder for more recognition.
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